Teaching for Understanding Learning PlanSTAGE 1 – DESIRED RESULTS

Grade Level: 4 Teacher’s name:

Unit Title: Personal Narrative

Established Goals:

- Knowing what a personal narrative is and the qualities that 4th grade authors should include.

- Reading the personal narratives of others can help us improve our own writing.- Creating our class book - personal narratives

Understandings: Students will understand that…

- Personal narratives are an opportunity to tell a personal story.

- Personal narratives focus on a single, important event.

- Personal narratives use I and me and is told from the first-person point of view.

- Personal narratives show the author’s thoughts and feelings.

- Personal narratives should not only tell what the author did, but why he or she did it and how she or he felt.

- It develops the experience with narrative techniques such as dialogue and description.

- It begins with an interesting lead and gives a sense of closure at the end.

Essential Questions:

1. What is the text type narrative, specifically personal narrative.?

2. What qualities do a fantastic personal narrative include?

3. How can reading someone else’s story help you to write your own?

MA Standards Mastered

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.3Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique,

descriptive details, and clear event sequences.CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.3.A

Orient the reader by establishing a situation and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.3.EProvide a conclusion that follows from the narrated experiences or events.

STAGE 2 – ASSESSMENT EVIDENCE

Performance Task:

The teacher will meet with students daily to conference about their writing and to assess each student’s progress. The teacher will keep a running record of student/teacher conferences.

See rubric below

Other Evidence:

- Ongoing anecdotal notes of teacher/student discussion/editing about personal narratives.

- Anchor charts in students’ writing notebooks.

- Final draft that each student will submit to the classroom book.

STAGE 3 – LEARNING PLAN

*Prior to the beginning of the unit - students will have decorated the cover of their writing folder with photographs, drawings, magazine cut outs of things that they love and that they have done over their summer. They will use this as an idea board for their writing for the school year.

Day 1: Students will complete a brief pre-assessment, which will consist of the following questions: • What is a personal narrative? • What are the qualities of a good personal narrative?

Students will then share their answers with other students using elbow buddies, walk & talk, or similar. After some sharing time, the teacher and students will work together to create a working definition of the term “personal narrative”. Teacher will then introduce the first essential question

for the unit: What is the text type narrative, specifically personal narrative?

Teacher and students will read the part about the blueberry competition from My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother by Patricia Polacco. After reading, pose this questions: 1. What did you learn about Patricia from this story? 2. Can you relate to Patricia?

Begin anchor chart, “Elements of a Personal Narrative”. Add bullet numbers: • Personal narratives are an opportunity to tell a personal story. Personal narratives focus on a single, important event. Personal narratives use I and me and is told from the first-person point of view.

*Teacher and students will work together over the course of this unit to create the anchor chart. Students should create their own copy of this anchor charts in their notes as the unit goes along.

Day 2: Revisit the 1st essential question: What is the text type narrative, specifically personal narrative?

Introduce the day’s mentor text: “The Great Mouse Plot” by Roald Dahl. Encourage students to underline or highlight details that speak to them. Teacher and students will read the mentor text. Create a Detail Graffiti Wall*. Each student should contribute at least one piece of “graffiti”, a detail from the text that spoke to him or her. To increase rigor, require the students to code their detail by which of the five senses it appealed to (red=sight, orange=hearing, green=touch, blue=taste, purple=touch). Students should cite the page number where the detail was found. *This can be created by laying out a large sheet of butcher paper on a table, leaving smaller papers at each table of students to later be assembled, or on a dry-erase board. Students can write directly onto the papers/board or on individual sticky notes they can stick to the paper or board. After the graffiti wall activity, students and teacher will return to the anchor chart “Elements of a Personal Narrative”. Pose this question: 1. Why did Roald and Patricia include details in their personal narratives? Use this question to help get students to the next bullet points: Personal narratives show the author’s thoughts and feelings. Personal narratives should not only tell what the author did, but why he or she did it and how she or he felt. It develops the experience with narrative techniques such as dialogue and description.

Day 3: Revisit the 1st essential question: What is the text type narrative, specifically personal narrative? Review the “Elements of a Personal Narrative” anchor chart. Students will use their lists to perform a hunt for personal narratives. Personal Narrative Hunt: Provide each student/student group with a stack of books from your classroom or school library (you will need to ensure beforehand that there are at least a few personal narratives included amongst the other

texts). Have them use their personal copies of the class “Elements of a Personal Narrative” anchor chart as a checklist to determine which books are personal narratives. After the hunt, introduce the third essential question: How can reading someone else’s story help you to write your own? In particular, how can the mentor texts we’ve read help us to create our own personal narrative? Use the “Elements of a Personal Narrative” anchor chart to create a class checklist for writing a personal narrative. Add in the last bullet point: It begins with an interesting lead and gives a sense of closure at the end.

Day 4: Review the features of personal narratives. Read and provide copies of the Massachusetts

Writing Standards in Action Grade 4 Personal Narrative writing sample, “The Comeback”.

Point out and have students highlight different features of this personal narrative sample - Strong

lead to engage the reader’s interest, maintains consistent focus on the topic, follows

chronological sequence, variety of sentence types, lengths and beginnings, precise choice of

words, excitement, strong ending.

Day 5: Discuss with students they are going to write personal narratives of something they experienced over the summer. Make note that personal narratives can also entertain the audience. Have students think about who will read their personal narratives, such as friends, family members, and classmates. Ask: What do you want your readers to remember about your story?

Mini Lesson on Sequence of Events:

Explain that writers often tell the events in a story in the order they happened. This sequence of

events helps readers understand what happened and why. Words and phrases such as earlier,

later, first, and last can help establish the order of events.

Distribute copies of the Model Graphic Organizer Sequence Chart (attached).

Have students work in pairs or small groups to brainstorm experiences in which over the summer

they learned something new and interesting. Remind them to focus on a single event. Ask

questions to prompt thinking. Have students record their topics in their Writer’s Notebooks.

● What interesting places have you visited?

● What are some challenging or interesting experiences you have had?

● What happened first? What happened next? How did it end

Provide copies of the blank Sequence Chart (attached). Ask students to put the important events

in order, or sequence. The beginning should set the scene and tell readers what they need to know

to understand the experience.

Day 6: Teach a Dialogue Mini Lesson

To make their narratives more interesting, writers often use dialogue. Explain that dialogue can

help advance the story the writer is telling. It also reveals the thoughts and feelings of someone in

the narrative.

Discuss with students how the following dialogue reveals the characters’ thoughts and feelings.

“What am I doing standing in a field watching birds?” I muttered to myself.

Invite students to share dialogue from stories they have read.

Have students review the Sequence Charts they prepared in Prewrite. Have them add dialogue

where they think would be best utilized.

Day 7: Teach a Transitions Mini-lesson

Remind students that readers need to be able to easily follow the sequence of events in a

narrative. Writers can use transitional words and phrases to help readers recognize sequence.

Explain that transitional words such as first, next, finally, and suddenly can help readers identify

shifts in time. These kinds of transitions are also called sequence words.

Have students find an example of a transition word in the Writing Standards in Action personal

narrative sample. Share and discuss.

Have the students write their first draft with the use of the sequence graphic organizer ensuring

there is dialogue and transition words.

Day 8-10: Guide students as they continue to edit and revise their writing using the Student

Rubric (attached). Help them understand that using a rubric helps them identify and focus on

areas that might need further work. Work with the class to review the bulleted points on the

rubric. Type up final drafts.

After students have evaluated their own personal narratives, tell them to reflect on their progress

as writers. Encourage them to consider areas where they feel they have shown improvement, and

to think about what areas need further improvement. Have them set writing goals to prepare for

their conference with the teacher.

Day 11-12: Compile the first classroom book, titled, “Oh, What a Summer!” and publish it to

your classroom library. Another option would be to send the book home to each student and have

parents write comments on a specific comment page. Send home with all students until each

family has viewed it and then keep in classroom library.

Means of Differentiation to address the needs of more struggling students

- The use of co-writer will available. - Students will story tell aloud to partners and/or small groups to help students having

difficulty finding a topic.- Students who have difficulty sequencing may use a storyboard to assist them.- Students will use graphic organizers and rubrics for revising and editing their own work. - The editing checklist will be simpler for struggling writers and more advanced for

experienced writers.

Re-Teachingfor students do not attain Proficient level in unit assessment

- If additional reteaches needs to be done on certain skill of writing (i.e. dialogue, figurative language, etc.) have students do the snowball mini-lesson where the students start a story with an entertaining beginning, then crumble it up and pass it to the next person, then they have to add elaborate details (or whatever the needed skill is) and keep passing until a narrative is written by several authors. This is a quick and engaging lesson on specifically what the students need clarification with.

- The teacher will devote more time to conferencing with struggling writers.- The teacher will check in with struggling writers after a mini-lesson

- The teacher with provide struggling writers with rubrics and graphic organizers to help keep them and their writing focused.

- Show struggling students more exemplars individually and discuss what makes these proficient writing pieces.

Rubric to Guide and Assess Learning

Writing Rubric

6 Awesome! 5 Strong! 4 Good!__Catchy Title__Told a seed story__Entertaining beginning__Storytelling of strong details, especially at heart of the story__A lot of rich language, vivid vocabulary, and similes__Effective use of dialogue__Satisfying conclusion__Excellent command of conventions__Story flows well due to transitions__3 or more pages

__Fitting Title__Told a seed story__Entertaining beginning__Storytelling of strong details__Story flows well due to transitions__some rich language, vivid vocabulary, and similes__Use of dialogue__ conclusion bring story to appropriate end__ Adequate use of conventions__2-3 pages

__ Title__Told a seed story__Interesting beginning__Storytelling of adequate details__Story flows due to transitions__some variety in language, vivid vocabulary or similes__Use of dialogue__ conclusion bring story to an end__ some use of conventions__2 pages

3 A few things to work on!

2 You’re on your way!

1 Let’s discuss this!

__ Title__Told a watermelon story__Has a beginning paragraph__Summarized many details__Has some transitions, but story doesn’t flow well__Little variety in language, vivid vocabulary or similes__little or incorrect use of dialogue__ abrupt ending__ some use of

__ Simple or missing title__Told a watermelon story__Summarized many details__Events not all in logical order__Story does not flow.__ Reader has many questions__list-like, without details, dull__ no dialogue__ no real ending__ poor use of

__ Simple or missing title__ told a watermelon story__Summary, missing detail__Lacks organization, events out of order__Reader is confused__Simple language__No dialogue__No ending__ Weak use of conventions__ Less than 1 page

conventions__1-2 pages

conventions__ 1 page

A student’s writing may be strong in one of these areas, but need work in another area, and/ or discuss with the teacher to improve.